By Sarah Vandale
Creative Communications student Patrick Eulalia teamed up with CBC Manitoba to celebrate Filipino culture.
When Eulalia had to pick a topic to write a blog about for the entire school year, he chose something that was close to his heart and called it The Pogi Project.
“The Pogi Project’s mission is to equip young Filipino men with the knowledge and inspiration to pursue careers outside of what’s expected of us,” Eulalia said.
Eulalia started The Pogi Project podcast as an addition to the blog in January, which features Adrian Siapno and Aaron Amado. The trio talks about topics such as break-ups and job hunting. On March 10, they recorded their first live podcast at Kultivation Festival FAMD (Food, Art, Music, and Dance)’s pop-up at My Garden City in partnership with CBC Manitoba.
Adrian Siapno, another member of The Pogi Project podcast, said recording a podcast episode in front of a live audience was nerve-wracking.
“When we’re recording in a studio at Red River College, there’s no one there, so we can just be ourselves, but once we started talking, it was more comfortable to have a live reaction to whatever you say,” Siapno said. “I try to crack some jokes every now and again and usually it’s just me laughing at my own jokes, but now I have an audience reacting as well.”
Kultivation Festival FAMD is a festival that aims to integrate modern Filipino culture into traditional Filipino culture to give people a glimpse into the Filipino community and help engage Filipino youth.
“A lot of people are forgetting how to cook rice, and they can’t speak any [Filipino languages], and then they don’t even want to learn,” said Allan Pineda, one of the founders of the festival. “So maybe by doing things they’re familiar with and integrating what they’re good at, we can maybe get them to learn a little bit about the past.”
Pineda thinks learning and preserving your culture is important, and the festival also helps everyone to learn more about Filipino culture, which helps build a sense of community.
Eulalia never expected his blog to lead to an event like this.
“You know, you start a project and it’s so small, but the more work you put into it, the more it grows, until it becomes this thing that you can’t even believe,” Eulalia said. “So, for CBC Manitoba to feature me and other Filipino Canadians and let us show that we’re here and we’re thriving, I appreciate it so much.”
Kultivation Festival is planning a two-day festival in June. Other pop-up events were planned during the month of March, however, they have been postponed.
To find out more information about Kultivation Festival FAMD, visit http://kultivationfestival.com.
To listen to The Pogi Project, visit https://thepogiproject.ca.
